Because another ring was made
by umskiptingur
Summary: An evil crime ring exploits the booming Mary Sue tourism industry. Candace discovers that travel to Middle Earth is not all it's cracked up to be. Can she escape back home or must she live forever in a world without toilet paper and dental floss?
1. Prologue

The 21st Ring  
  
Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,  
  
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,  
  
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,  
  
One for Sauron's cousin Bob the Bad,  
  
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne  
  
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.  
  
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,  
  
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them  
  
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.  
  
"No, no, no!" an agonized hobbit exclaimed as he beat his forehead over the parchment scroll that he was attempting to translate into his own language for his new book. "It just won't work! There's no way I can put in all this Bob the Bad nonsense in here. Not only does it completely wreck the tone of this poem, it's just plain strange. I'm sure no one will care if I just cross this line here out." The pen made a satisfying skitch- scatch across his paper as he scribbled over all memory of the twenty-first ring. "It sounds like some kind of twisted elvish joke, anyway," he mumbled to himself contentedly, "Probably not very important, that Bob- ring, even if it ever did exist, which I doubt. And besides, what you don't know won't hurt you."  
  
How wrong he was.  
  
Ages later, Tolkien (who I don't own) discovered this hobbit's story (which I don't own) and made his own translation, which he called *The Lord of The Rings* (I don't own that, either). All memory of Bob and his ring was lost. So when a strange looking man appeared on the streets of a small Canadian city trying to hawk a Ring of Power, all he got were some incredulous looks and a toonie thrown into his coffee cup, which was full at the time. Discouraged and slightly splashed by the experience, he prepared to head back to wherever it was that he came from. It was then that he noticed the large, ugly building with mysterious lettering across the front and large numbers of people streaming out of it. If he had been able to read, which he couldn't, he would have noticed the sign reading "Now Playing: The Two Towers" (sadly, yet another thing in this world that I don't own). But even though he couldn't read, he was attracted to the crowd, and hoped that somewhere here would be someone stupid enough to accept the offer that he would make. 


	2. Don't talk to strangers

A hunched-over little man with beady eyes, slightly pointy ears and a trench coat grabbed my arm as I walked out of the movie theatre. "Hey, you," he hissed, "wanna buy a hot Ring of Power?"  
  
"Ring of Power?" I demanded incredulously. I couldn't believe this. I mean, the Rings of Power had all either been destroyed or had passed over the sea.  
  
"For you, a very special price," grinned the man. He pulled out a ring from his pocket and waved it tantalizingly around in the air. "Only 19.95. No tax."  
  
"And exactly which Ring of Power is this?" I asked.  
  
"What you are looking at," the man informed me confidently, "is the long-lost 21st ring. Do you remember the poem in *The Lord of the Rings* about - yes, of course you do. What you don't realize is that it's not the whole story. There was another ring made, but the line about it was cut long ago because it didn't make very good poetry and it was spoiling the rhyme scheme. Look how it shines in the light, though! Pure mithril, set with amethyst. For anyone else, a fortune. But for you, I'm practically giving it away."  
  
"And why is that?"  
  
"Because," the man said with a wink, "you are very wise." For an instant I wished that someone who wasn't trying to sell me something would say that to me. "Besides," he continued, "it's no good to me. The other rings lost their power after the One Ring was destroyed. But this ring, this ring is smarter. It's seeking to return to the time *before* its power was lost. Put it on your finger and it will take you back with it. And who in their right mind would want a ring that you couldn't even wear without being sucked back with it into some oddball time and place?"  
  
I felt strangely drawn to the ring, even if it was the strangest and least credible story that I'd ever heard in my life. Seizing the ring from his outstretched hand, I stared at it closely. Finally I looked up in triumph: "If this is a Ring of Power, how come it says 'Made in China' on the inside?"  
  
The man gasped, shrieked something unintelligible and scurried away, leaving me with the ring in my hand. As soon as he was out of sight, I started to laugh. *Sucker*. I pocketed the ring. Suddenly felt an incredible urge to pass my hand across my brow and have a shadow lift from my face. Vaguely I wondered why. Well, the ring was mine now, and I had come by it honestly. I was not a thief. I was not. The man had left it to me. He was just trying to scam me anyways. I wasn't telling a lie, it was just a little joke. He just took it too seriously, that's all. It's nothing, no big deal, such a little thing. 


	3. Who, me? Mary Sue?

I waited to put on the ring until I had shut myself into my room back home and turned off all the lights, something that seemed logical at the time. I was pretty sure that nothing would happen, but I kept my shoes on all the same. I slid the ring onto my finger. Then I waited. And continued to wait. The air stayed exactly the same. I wondered if something was supposed to happen. A horrible, blush-inducing feeling began to creep over me: sucker yourself. I fumbled for the lightswitch, but I couldn't find it in the dark. Muttering to myself, I picked my way through my room blindly until my fingers closed over a doorknob. I turned it and walked out the door.  
  
The first thing that I noticed out of the ordinary was that I was now standing in ankle deep water. It was still dark. I reached out my hand to touch the wall and was confronted by a damp tree trunk. So the little man was right, I thought to myself and turned back around to where my door had been to get my rubber boots. Unfortunately, my door was no longer there, just more water and trees. This was definitely not supposed to happen.  
  
Where was I? I wondered. The most immediate conclusion that I could come up with was that I was in a puddle, which I immediately stepped out of. Looking up above me through a gap between the trees, I realized with concern that the stars looked vaguely different. Looking around, I realized with even more concern that I was alone in a clearing in the middle of a large forest with nothing to eat but spearmint Tic-Tacs. Stupid ring.  
  
"Strange maiden, who art thou?" came a low and handsome voice nearby. That was more like it.  
  
"Me?" I asked, even though that was a ridiculous question in the middle of a large wilderness devoid of any visible life. "I'm Candace."  
  
A tall, dark stranger-Ranger stepped out from behind a tree. "Greetings, fair lady Candace. I am Mirwold, a Ranger of the North, though most folk in these parts call me Shorty. And here are two I would wish you to meet: my companions, Fadrornion and Englas. They're elves." Two tall, blond, blue-eyed guys - elves - stepped out from behind other trees and bowed. Oddly enough, they didn't have pointy ears. "They speak but little of the common tongue," Mirwold said.  
  
"Um, excuse me," I said at this point, "but where am I?"  
  
"Are you lost then, maiden?" asked Mirwold, "Or was your party waylaid by orcs from whom you only escaped? Few travel in these parts alone in these dark days."  
  
"Ah, no," I said, "I'm just lost. I wasn't traveling anywhere with anyone. I wasn't traveling at all. One minute I was at home, the next minute I'm here."  
  
"Wondrous strange," said Mirwold. "But what land do you hail from? For you look nothing like any wanderer I have met before."  
  
"I'm from Canada," I said hesitantly. "I don't think you'll have heard of -"  
  
"Canada," mused Mirwold. "Isn't that somewhere north of Angmar?"  
  
"Something like that."  
  
"Then I say to you, Candace of Canada, that whatever strange craft has brought you here, you are welcome to travel with us. We are making for Rivendell, where you may speak with Elrond, who is wise and may know how you may return to your home again."  
  
"Thanks!" I exclaimed, although it was what I had been expecting him to say all along. If I had had a choice, I would have preferred the falling-into-Camp-Legolas scenario myself, but the whole go-to-Rivendell-to- see-the-elves thing was nothing to be sneezed at, either. All that was missing here was the Fellowship, which I would probably meet up with in a couple of days anyway. Hey, maybe I could even save Frodo from the Ringwraiths! And Mirwold's elf friends - what can I say? I love elves! Plus, I could try out all the elvish that I had memorized on them! I just knew there was a reason that I'd read all the appendices!  
  
*****  
  
(Is the author's name Candace? Is this nothing more than a sneakily disguised attempt to write herself into the arms of Legolas? Will this fic descend into sappiness and shameless clothing descriptions or is there an *unexpected plot twist* on the horizon?) 


	4. Wait, this wasn't supposed to happen!

"So, Lady Candace - you don't mind if I call you thou, do you? - what strange powers brought thee hither?" asked Mirwold as we sat around the campfire watching my socks sizzle dry.  
  
"Uh, Candace is fine," I said. "Just Candace."  
  
"Indeed, I had mistaken you for an elf yourself had you not spoke as if it were otherwise. For indeed you are indeed the fairest creature upon which eye has been set upon these many fortnights."  
  
I blinked, wondering what Mirwold was talking about. I was pretty sure that he had said something about me being beautiful. I've lived with my face for enough mornings to recognize that it is nowhere near elf- beautiful. He had to be kidding. Maybe he just hadn't seen anything even remotely female in months. But no, I reminded myself, guys in Middle Earth didn't think things like that, and they never, ever played practical jokes on other people. I decided that I must have been transformed into a beautiful elf-maiden on the trip over. It was the only rational explanation. I would definitely have to re-check the colour of my eyes when I ran into a mirror again. I moved to tuck my still short, possibly not still brown hair back behind my ears where it belonged. Just then, Englas made a strange suppressed choking noise and turned away. Was it my only imagination, or was Englas trying to hide a laugh? I glared at him.  
  
"Alack," said Mirwold quickly, "Englas' lembas must have gone down the wrong way."  
  
"You have lembas!" I gasped in excitement. "Where? Can I have some?"  
  
"You must be tired, fairest Candace," Mirwold said. "Sleep now, and the morning will bring you many answers."  
  
***  
  
I have no idea how someone could possibly sleep with nothing but a blanket between her and the sweet earth below, with a purse for a pillow. I know I couldn't. So there I lay, looking at the ring on my finger wondering why I couldn't have landed in Rivendell itself, or even a nice, cozy bed in some nice, clean inn. I am not a camping person at all, something I probably should have considered before going to a place notorious for its long, epic journeys across miserable, icky terrain. There was a dead silence in the air filled only by the little voices in my head. The very, very annoying little voices in my head.  
  
Candace, what is wrong with this scenario? I don't know. Elves, Rangers, beautiful scenery, beautiful me. No, I don't see anything wrong with this scenario at all. Candace, have you or have you not read Appendix F? Who are you casting aspersions on? Of course I have! You know perfectly well I have! You're inside my head, for the love of all that is good and beautiful! Candace, why could you understand what that guy over there was saying? Why is he speaking English to you when any language that you would understand is completely unknown in Middle Earth? Maybe it's the power of the ring. Very funny, Candace. If the ring really did give you the power to understand other languages, why would they sound so strange and incoherently archaic?  
  
Suddenly I realized something. This particular little voice in my head was right. Rangers should not speak English. I sat up in blanket - it was not bed - and realized that Mirwold, Fadrornion and Englas were all staring at me from their various distances. "Is something amiss?" asked Mirwold.  
  
"Yes," I said, very decidedly.  
  
Mirwold gave me a somewhat shifty look. "What might that be?" he asked.  
  
"Mirwold, or whoever you really are, I would like to know exactly how you learned English."  
  
"English?" asked Mirwold innocently, "I speak no English. I'm speaking the common tongue."  
  
"Aha! But you do know what it is! Admit it! You know what English is! And thus, you are speaking it!"  
  
Mirwold was genuinely confused. "Runst thou that past me again, please?"  
  
"English hasn't been invented yet, so how do you know what it is?"  
  
"Ahhh, It must be the power of the ring," he said.  
  
"The ring!" I exclaimed. "This is a conspiracy! You aren't really a Ranger, are you?"  
  
"So I'm not a Ranger," snapped Mirwold angrily. "What about it?"  
  
"You're a fraud, attempting to lead me astray with your hotness. Well, I'm not as stupid as you think I am. I see right through your little game, you know, you criminal crook!" I immediately regretted saying that. Mirwold didn't look too pleased.  
  
"Did you just call me a crook?" growled Mirwold, and drew his sword.  
  
This was definitely not a good thing. I was in serious trouble. It was a good thing that I was wielding a Ring of Power. Only, how exactly were you supposed to use the thing? Did you wave it around in the air chanting things? Did you concentrate really hard until you started glowing neon pink and emitting electricity-like noises? Why couldn't Tolkien have gone into detail about the way to actually use these rings, at least greater detail than a basic "don't try this at home, folks, or it will consume your soul and suck out your mind"? I panicked.  
  
"My go van on!" I screamed to Fadrornion and Englas in my best elvish, "Melons mine! Uh, help me!" Fadrornion and Englas blinked uncomprehendingly. Knowing my luck, they were no more elves than Mirwold was. I was so dead.  
  
Of course, I wasn't physically dead. If I was, it would be kind of hard for me to be telling this in the first person.  
  
"Isljdsa, soi aoij lak sdfs," piped up Fadrornion just before things got really serious.  
  
Mirwold turned around in surprise: "Isljdsa? Oapssd oier asdlk! Oapfi! Lasdn."  
  
"Tasdn adjnf ko eo jasdn pasdj asdke oasne aow," pointed out Englas.  
  
"Uhu. Oaspns awo owekjn," sighed Mirwold and turned to me. "My companion is right. It would be very uncivilized of me to kill a woman, lost and helpless and alone in the forest. It is a deed not worthy of me. Forgive my little outburst, I beg you, and all shall be revealed to you in the morning."  
  
Wow. Great. Saved by. chauvinism. How comforting. Watching the movies had somehow made me forget how very limited a role women tended to play in the books. Lobelia Sackville-Baggins was the only female creature that I could remember in the entire Hobbit. At least Mirwold had given up trying to sound archaic.  
  
"There is one thing, though," said Mirwold very casually. "Since there is obviously no need to keep up pretenses any more with you, I'm going to have to ask you to give the ring back. I know you have it, and I know that's how you got here." I stared at him defiantly. Give up my precious? "So that I don't have to hack it off your hand myself," Mirwold continued, just as casually. Come to think of it, I never really liked the ring anyway.  
  
"Thank you," said Mirwold, when the precious was safely in his pocket. "It's not safe for you to have that for any extended length of time. Does funny things to your head. Good-night, now, sleep tight, and don't let the giant spiders bite."  
  
"Giant spiders on the way to Rivendell? There aren't any giant spiders near Rivendell!"  
  
"Rivendell? What does Rivendell have to do with anything? We're on the edge of what I think you call Mirkwood." I groaned. This wasn't supposed to be happening! How could I run into the Fellowship in Mirkwood? What if I was stuck in The Hobbit, not LOTR at all? What if I was in some other time completely? Some boring time where nothing happened? This wasn't fair! How come everybody else got to fall straight into Legolas' campsite and not me? And here I was, I mentally whined, stuck in a huge ugly forest with a more than vaguely evil guy and his non-English-speaking companions. I probably hadn't even turned into an elf. This was the worst day of my life. Ever.  
  
Although. Legolas. Mirkwood. But I had more important things to think about now, such as not getting killed by a crazed un-Ranger and his friends somewhere on the borders of Mirkwood. On the other hand, my whole day had probably been a dream, and in the morning I would wake up happily in my nice warm own bed. At least, that was what I was hoping. 


	5. The 21st ring

It was still dark when I woke up again. I rolled over to look at my clock: it was always nice to be able to complain at work about the unholy hour of the morning that I had spontaneously woken up. Strangely enough, all of my walls had turned into trees, and my clock had disappeared and I saw no clear path to the bathroom, which seemed to have disappeared when I most wanted it. I decided I was still asleep, but Fadrornion, Englas and Mirwold had other plans.  
  
"So you have finally arisen," said Mirwold cheerfully. "We have been waiting for you for some time. Feel free to have breakfast with us."  
  
"Uh -" I said hesitantly, "if you would just excuse me for a moment. . ." It was that morning that I decided the song that goes, "you don't know what you've got til it's gone," was written specifically with toilet paper in mind.  
  
Breakfast, according to Mirwold, was an inedible old slab of dried meat and a hunk of the blandest, chewiest bread I've ever tried to keep down. I asked if there was anything to drink. He pointed to a dirty leather water bottle. For some reason, I had always pictured Middle Earth water bottles as being kind of like our own hot water bottles, basically clean and hygienic if you don't put your feet on them. Now I wondered why. The water inside smelled funny. "Do you know where that water in there came from?" I asked suspiciously.  
  
"Fadrinian got it from some stream, I think," said Mirwold.  
  
"Do you know all the diseases you can get drinking water from just anywhere? There's probably all kinds of bacteria in that. You should at least boil it, you know." The only response I got an exasperated sigh. I would seem that rolling your eyes was not a strictly Modern Earth phenomenon. "No, really. It's true. For at least five minutes. And I don't think I'm very hungry, actually. You can have the rest of this stale bread stuff if you want."  
  
Mirwold snorted. "I'm not carrying you after you pass out on the path from hunger. Stop complaining. You're almost as bad as that balding guy who came complete with this big book he kept referring to to inform of us everything we were doing 'inaccurately'. So don't go telling me that there aren't any water sources in Mirkwood or anything."  
  
"What are you talking about?" I demanded.  
  
"Oh, of course," said Mirwold. "My story. Yes, where are my manners? You need the epic backstory. Well, what you found yesterday was the long lost 21st Ring, very long lost indeed. There are few indeed who remember its making, in a forgotten time and age. It was a kind of trial-run ring for the One Ring, because if Sauron was going to pour all his cruelty and malice and will to dominate all life into a ring, he wanted it to be a really good ring, not some cheap knock-off. So instead, he poured into *this* ring the cruelty and malice and will to dominate all life of his cousin Bob the Bad. But Bob wasn't a very competent evil creature at the best of times, so he promptly went off and lost it. It took him ages to find it again, and when he finally recovered it he got Sauron to make a few modifications. So now, instead of possessing the will to dominate all life, it possesses the will to track and return itself to Bob. Always remember that. The ring wants to get back to the hand of its master. It wants to be found. Fortunately, just as Bob had a bad memory, so does his ring. And so, it keeps coming back to this spot here, where for some reason it thinks he is. But if some very strong person can bend it to his or her will, they can trick it into thinking Bob is some place else. Say, into the future. And then, when in the possession of someone who isn't that strong, it will draw them back to this spot, along with all of their priceless otherwise uninvented thingamajigs, which we then acquire from them and make a huge profit from."  
  
"So what you're saying is that you use this ring to lure unsuspecting inhabitants of my world back to Middle Earth with all of their stuff, which you can then sell for inflated prices?"  
  
"More or less," agreed Mirwold.  
  
"But what happens to the people?" I asked.  
  
"People? I don't know. We just leave them to do their own thing. We learned our English from them over time, in case you were wondering where that came from. It was a gradual kind of thing, really. There was one teacher guy who taught us formal English to use on newcomers - for some reason they like it better than what you and I are talking right now. He was in the middle of teaching us what he called Middle English (for some reason, he found this hilariously funny) when he unfortunately disappeared. Still, that was the exception. Usually, we play along with them for a few days, but then most of them get tired of Middle Earth after a little while, so we steal their stuff and tell them to walk in that direction over there chanting 'there's no place like home' and then we take off with the loot for Esgaroth."  
  
"That's so mean! Are you telling me this because you're about to abandon me in the middle of nowhere so I can starve to death?"  
  
"Not if you finish breakfast," said Mirwold. "I must say, for a prospective traveller from a different point in time, you certainly didn't pack a lot. I mean, it's not as if you didn't have any warning. What were you thinking?"  
  
"Maybe it was the power of the ring," I answered sulkily.  
  
"Maybe," said Mirwold. "But didn't you even listen to the instructions that the guy gave you when he sold you the ring?"  
  
"I didn't - I mean, ah -" I hesitated. Somehow, I didn't think these people would take it very well if they found out that I had committed a, well, slight deception to get the ring without paying for it. Or even worse, they would think that it was so hilariously funny that they would laugh at me for the rest of my life. Either way, I would never be able to live it down. "How come you aren't affected by the power of Bob's ring?" I asked suddenly, by means of changing the subject. It was only afterwards that I realized it was a halfways reasonable thing to wonder.  
  
"Ha?" Mirwold raised his eyebrows and waited for a more complete explanation.  
  
"Remember last night? You said the ring did strange things to people. Doesn't it have that effect on you too?"  
  
"That's only if you're wearing it," corrected Mirwold. "It's virtually harmless when it's merely nearby you or in your possession. I'm not wearing it. Any other questions before you answer mine?"  
  
"Sure," I said. "How can Sauron have a cousin if he's a spirit thing who doesn't have any parents?"  
  
"How do you know he doesn't have any parents?"  
  
"I guess I -"  
  
"You just assumed that because he was a giant red eyeball, he didn't have parents. Typical."  
  
"Well, not exactly -"  
  
"He wasn't always a giant red eyeball, you know."  
  
"I know that!"  
  
"How?"  
  
"I read the other book thing."  
  
"Other... book... thing..."  
  
"About the elves and stuff and these pretty rocks."  
  
"They didn't have Bob in there too, did they?" asked Mirwold, somewhat eagerly.  
  
"I don't remember -"  
  
"Typical," sighed Mirwold. "Well, enough talking. We've had enough to last us our entire day's walk."  
  
I didn't like the sound of that. 


	6. 101 Reasons to hate Middle Earth

"The Fellowship walked all day then took a short break for something to eat and started walking again for another several hours, after which they got 2 hours of sleep and then kept right on walking."  
  
Try it sometime. After an hour or so, I could barely breathe. This was a very intensive fitness workout indeed, although it did have the benefit to it that, unlike my other attempts to lose a little weight, it wasn't something that I would ever have to worry about cheating on. By now, I had seen enough of Mirkwood to be too terrified of losing my companions on the path, even if they were a bunch of crooks.  
  
Mirwold I could understand. He had obviously been corrupted by the power of the ring, being a mortal and everything. Fadrornion and Englas were still a mystery to me. As elves, they should know better then to go along with such an evil scheme to dupe innocent Middle Earth lovers for personal profit! Maybe they didn't realize what was going on. Maybe Mirwold had deceived them as he had obviously done to so many. There was only one problem: I couldn't figure out a way to warn them. If only my elvish vocabulary had more than five words in it, I thought wistfully.  
  
I tried to convey the danger of their situation to them while Mirwold was distracted by a false orc-alarm, but they didn't seem to understand a word I was trying to say. "He mornie," I said desperately, pointing to Mirwold's crouching back, "not melon." Fadrornion looked at me for a moment and blinked. It was becoming increasingly clear that looks were Fadrornion's only asset, except possibly brute strength. Hardly a very elvish kind of trait, I mused. Englas didn't seem much more elvish himself. He didn't even try to listen to me. Instead, he gave me a withering glare and pushed me out of sight behind a tree just off the path, where I stayed until it was discovered that the orcs were actually small, noisy woodland creatures.  
  
The three of them didn't pay much attention to me at all, except when I was particularly in the way. Mirwold, Englas and Fadrornion seemed barely aware of my existence as they set up camp for the night. I was beginning to feel like someone's tagalong little sister, an unusual feeling for me since I have never been anybody's little sister before. I ate a Tic- tac. It made me feel a little better. I stretched out across the forest floor and sighed with relief, beyond caring that I was probably getting dead leaves and miscellaneous forest debris all over me. For the first time that day, I was almost happy.  
  
Then Englas started spontaneously reciting poetry. I had forgotten how much they did that in the LOTR, pages and pages of "fragments" of poems. Sadly, I find epic poetry extremely boring even when it's in a language I can understand. I yawned. Then I noticed the glinty lights of eyes looking out at me from outside the ring of the campfire. I stopped yawning. "They're just giant overgrown flesh-eating squirrels, for the most part," whispered Mirwold helpfully. With this comforting thought in mind, I moved closer to the fire and fell asleep to the sound of Englas' monotonously structured sing-song chant in the pitch dark of Mirkwood and dreamed of fresh produce and baths. 


	7. There are no suburbs in Mirkwood

I hurt waking up the next morning. I really hurt. Muscles I didn't even know I had hurt. I groaned and wondered whether the paralysis was going to be permanent.  
  
"Rise and shine," said Mirwold. He was smiling from ear to ear. I liked him less every time I saw him. I gritted my teeth and tried to repress the urge to hunt down and slay the cruelly perky person who had taught him that phrase.  
  
"Mrphmx," I protested grumpily.  
  
"The best cure for stiffness is exercise," Mirwold informed me as he turned back to his campfire, where he was apparently cooking something in a small pot. Fadrornion helped me to my feet, where I swayed for a few minutes before sitting down again. Englas was nowhere in sight. I crawled over to investigate breakfast only to realize with a sudden pang that the pot that it was being cooked in hadn't been washed in some time. I knew better than to ask questions by now, and had learned that sometimes it was best just to forget everything that I had ever learned about basic cleanliness. After all, what could you wash a pot *with* in this forest? I seemed to have been unlucky enough to have arrived in the middle of the only puddle in Mirkwood, I thought miserably.  
  
There were more important things to complain about, though. I was still wearing the same clothes that I had put on two days ago. Even if they did smell uniformly of campfire, it was still extremely disgusting. Like so many other things, I could do absolutely nothing about it. Mirwold and company didn't travel with a lot of spare clothes as far as I could tell, and I doubted that they had changed their own shirts in months.  
  
"It's porridge," said Mirwold, in answer to my unthought question. He stirred the pot with a random stick. "So, will it cause diseases and bacterias to eat this?"  
  
"Probably," I sighed, "but burning your food to the bottom of the pot tends to kill at least some of that stuff."  
  
"Are you implying that I'm a bad cook?"  
  
"You're stirring up little black flakes with your stick," I pointed out to him.  
  
He looked down and hastily took his pot off the fire. "Observant, aren't you? Well, breakfast is served. Et mat, Wiglaf." Fadrornion sat down beside me and began munging. Englas still didn't appear. I was beginning to secretly hope that he had understood my message and would return bringing Legolas and some of his friends to my rescue. It wasn't the most rational thing I've ever thought in my life, but I was desperate. I hadn't brushed my teeth in a long, long time.  
  
Englas did reappear, however, and it wasn't with Legolas. I sighed again. "Eat up," Mirwold prompted me, "We're not going to patiently wait forever for you to finish eating, you know. Women may be helpless creatures according to certain friends of mine, but I assure you, I am smarter than both of them put together, and if you don't hurry up, I will find some way to trick them just as I have done repeatedly in the past."  
  
"You're evil," I said, in between large spoonfuls of glue-like porridge.  
  
"I prefer the term 'bad', myself," shrugged Mirwold serenely. Clearly, the whole Bob thing was taking over his mind.  
  
"You can't trick elves," I told him defiantly.  
  
Mirwold choked on the remains of his breakfast. I hoped that he was being struck by a pang of fear, not uncontrollable laughter.  
  
* * *  
  
"Are we there yet?" I demanded as Fadrornion, Englas and Mirwold loaded up their packs and set off onto the road again.  
  
"No," said Mirwold, who was in a ludicrously good mood despite the long, long walk facing us, "but we're not far. It's only about three weeks."  
  
Three weeks! A few days had nearly killed me! And to go where? Esgaroth, the capital of boring. I was going to die. Tylenol, sweet Tylenol, where art thou? And dental floss. . . and normal people. . .  
  
"So, what kind of elf are you?" I asked Fadrornion out of sheer boredom.  
  
"Kind of elf?" repeated Fadrornion blankly, "I am an elf."  
  
"It's Fadrornion's only English phase," said Mirwold hastily.  
  
"Where do you live, then?" I asked Fadrornion, ignoring Mirwold.  
  
"Live?" repeated Fadrornion slowly, as if trying to process the question. Suddenly he brightened: "I home own in Ro-"  
  
Mirwold coughed loudly, drowning out the end of Fadrornion's sentence. "What he is trying to say is that he is from Rowan. It's a suburb of Mirkwood."  
  
"Mirkwood doesn't have suburbs!"  
  
"How do you know?"  
  
"I -"  
  
"Well?"  
  
"It wasn't in the book!"  
  
"Were Sauron's parents in 'the book'?"  
  
"No, but that's different!"  
  
"Why?"  
  
"There was a map of Mirkwood in the book."  
  
"Who made the map?"  
  
"I don't know. People? Dwarves? Hobbits maybe?"  
  
"Well, there you go. It was probably drawn by someone who couldn't tell Mirkwood from Taur e-Ndaedelos."  
  
"But there is no difference between Mirkwood and Taur e-Ndaedelos!"  
  
Mirwold stopped dead in his stupid argument and stared at me. 


	8. The Truth About Mirwold

"How - did - you - know - that -" Mirwold managed at last.  
  
"I told you I had read the appendices," I said proudly.  
  
"Actually, no, you didn't. And what's an appendice?"  
  
"It's the thing that comes at the end of a book that nobody reads," I explained.  
  
"I can't quite picture it," hesitated Mirwold, but he kept looking at me with what I was hoping was a mixture of newfound respect and awe. It was coming, I could tell. He would open his mouth and those magical words would float out of it: "You are a genius, Candace." And all would be slow motion and twinkly light-shots and I would slowly fade back into my own world after learning an important life-lesson.  
  
Like most perfect things, it was not to be. Instead of praise and admiration, all that was aimed towards me was a black-feathered arrow, which hurtled suddenly and unexpectedly through the air to land deep in a nearby tree. We were being attacked by orcs! Englas, Fadrornion and Mirwold hastily took cover and peeled out their swords. I panicked and stood rooted to the spot, gasping and choking.  
  
For some reason, I had always thought that being a halfways moderately good person would compensate for a complete lack of fighting skills. It always does. Nowhere else have I ever heard of a situation where the heroine completely freaked out after being ambushed by evil creatures, although it could just be the fact that I don't read much non-fiction. True, sometimes they get into perilous situations that require their being rescued by tall, handsome elf-warriors. And sometimes they just start slowly and mess up at first, like Frodo and friends on Weathertop. But they all manage to pick up mysterious fighting skills somewhere along the line. But I, I did not even act in a self-preserving manner. I just stood there, frozen, sure of only one thing, which was that my death was very imminent. I closed my eyes and swayed back and forth dizzily. The sound of fighting began to surround me, and of grunty snarls. I opened one eye cautiously only to see that an orc was coming straight at me, rusty sword raised. Mirwold was standing calmly looking at it and me through the bushes. I squeaked in fear and annoyance - why wouldn't he do something?  
  
Suddenly a ringing cry pierced the air. Both the orc and I looked up in horror. Mirwold had vanished. But before me hovered the most disturbing sight I have ever seen: a giant nose, orangish and wreathed in smoke. "An ack-Boback! An ack-Boback!" shrieked the orcs in fear. They fled in one direction. Englas and Fadrornion fled in the other. Me, I didn't even have the strength to run. I swayed, teetered and fell into the bushes. Desperately I crawled deeper into my bush in a vain attempt to hide from the great nose that smelled all, piercing perfume, deodorant and air-freshener. This was the end. This was really the end. I reclosed my eyes and waited.  
  
The end did not come, however. Instead, Mirwold did. "I guess it's just us now," he said, helping me to my feet. "Those orcs won't be coming back any time soon."  
  
"W-what about the nose thing? And Englas and Fadrornion?"  
  
"They'll be fine. We're only about a day's walk away from civilization."  
  
I glared at him. The evilness of the man! We had probably been walking in circles the whole time, and he knew it! Then my benevolent side took over: "We have to warn the villagers about the orcs!" I exclaimed, "Or they will all be killed!"  
  
Mirwold laughed. "I don't think these orcs are going to attack any villages. I think they came here to find me."  
  
"Find you? But why?"  
  
Instead of answering my question, Mirwold turned his attention towards the arrow, which I now realized had a piece of parchment secured tightly around it, which he carefully untied, unrolled and began to read.  
  
"What does the scroll say?" I asked, trying to lean over Mirwold's shoulder.  
  
"Well, obviously it's not in English, so what you're doing isn't going to work particularly well, but I'll try and translate it for you. I believe that in your language it would run something like this: 'Dear Cousin Bob, would you please fill in for a few months for the Mouth of Sauron, he's going on a vacation this summer in Rhûn and I need a replacement. With Evilest Regards, The One Who Must Not Be Named.'"  
  
"I still don't get it," I hesitated.  
  
"It's always the same story. When they can't get the Mouth of Sauron, the hotshot big name PR guy, they call in the Nose of Sauron. But do they ever give the Nose any credit for the hard work he puts in over at Mordor Central? Do they ever say thank-you for everything you've done for us, O ever-tireless and excellent Nose of Sauron? One would think, but noooo, it's all don't get comfortable, don't mess with the Palantir, don't leave your junk all over the place for wraiths to trip on. In fact, they even go to great lengths to cover up his presence, which in my opinion completely defeats the purpose of having a subordinate body part at all." Mirwold scowled bitterly.  
  
"That's not what I meant," I tried to explain, even more confused, "What do you have to do with Bob the Maia's mail and the Nose of Sauron? And where did that nose thing come from anyway?"  
  
Mirwold sighed impatiently. "Isn't it obvious? Floating nose, me, letter to Bob?"  
  
"Are we being followed by the evil nose of Bob or something?"  
  
Mirwold bashed his head repeatedly against a convenient tree. "I am Bob, you idiot!" he shouted. "Do you have no logical deduction skills whatsoever?"  
  
"Oh," I nodded, more confused than ever, not even sure whether he was insane or merely crazy. "You don't look like a nose."  
  
"Thanks," said Mirwold sarcastically, "It's a great relief to know. I suppose it is pretty complex for you mortals to understand, but try to think of it in terms of Sauron. As I'm sure you somehow know, he's a giant floating eyeball. But remember, he wasn't always a giant floating eyeball. He used to walk around just like you and I are doing right now."  
  
Suddenly something clicked. "You mean you're not really human? That nose was you?"  
  
Mirwold shrugged. "I guess you know the truth about me now." 


	9. Alone with The Nose

"So, now what?" I asked Mirwold/Bob.  
  
"What do you mean, now what?"  
  
"Well, for one thing, do I call you Bob now?"  
  
"No!" shouted Mirwold, turning around suddenly to look straight at me, "Do NOT call me Bob! Whatever you do, do not call me Bob!"  
  
"Because you don't want anyone else finding out who you are?"  
  
Mirwold blinked several times before realizing that he and I were riding on slightly different trains of thought. "Not exactly," he began, temporarily calmer, "It's just - how can I say this - I hate my name. I mean, who names their kid Bob? No one! They name them nice, normal things like Mordil or Mithrog. Everyone was always, oooh, it's so original, be proud to stand out, and I was all, why does HE get to be Sauron and have the evil name and be the cool body part and do all the fun stuff and not me?" He was a little scary when he was ranting.  
  
"So you're going to Mordor now?" I asked in an attempt to distract him.  
  
"Well, it's not like I can say no," pointed out Mirwold. "It wouldn't make me very popular down at Barad-dûr. But right now, you and I are going to Esgaroth, where we'll be able to prepare properly for our journey."  
  
"Why did you say 'we'?" I demanded suspiciously. Maybe he was affected by a Gollum-complex or something. One of those side effects of Rings of Power written in fine print at the bottom of the contract.  
  
"I said we because you, Candace, are coming with me."  
  
"To Mordor?"  
  
"Of course! Brilliant idea, isn't it?" smiled Mirwold. "No one will ever suspect me of evil motives while traveling through Gondorian-held territory if I have a woman with me!"  
  
"Is that what people think around here, then?" I coughed. "You know, that's not the first thing that would come to mind for most people I know."  
  
"Oh, come on! It'll be fun!" Mirwold said encouragingly. "I know that you'll slow me down and everything and be a huge nuisance the whole way, but really, who in his right mind wants to hurry to Mordor? And just think, it'll be a great cover story when Sauron demands what took me so long."  
  
"Look, Bo- Mirwold, I hate to say this, but being the Dark Lord's wrath-object has never been one of my career goals."  
  
"Well, Candace, I hate to say this myself, but you don't really have a choice in this. I may not be the greatest Maia that ever lived, but I'm still way, way more powerful than you puny mortals. And I would like to take the opportunity to point out that I am the only one of this little group here who knows the way out of this place. Besides, just between us, you and I know that your subliminal desire to get my ring again would prevent you from ever leaving me, because you think that it's the only way for you to get back to your home."  
  
Oh. That had never occurred to me before. "Are you sure you couldn't just drop me off with the Elves on the way?" I pleaded, but it was a half- hearted attempt. I was busy making the mistake of looking Mirwold in the eyes, something you should never do when the eyes that you are looking at belong to an immortal being who is currently disguised as a tall, hot Ranger. There was something about those eyes that made me wonder how I could ever have believed that he was human. They were bottomless in their grey depths, as if one could stare at them for a lifetime and still barely skim the surface of the memories they saw. They were lit with the light of a thousand thousand summers, and yet there was sorrow there too, great sorrow. Wisdom there was, and knowledge. These were not the eyes of someone who would ever want to deceive me, the kind of eyes that you could trust with pets and small children - and I was definitely being hypnotized or something.  
  
"Fine!" I muttered grumpily after realizing that there really was no winning a battle with Mirwold once he had decided its outcome. "But you have to promise to teach me self-defense and Westron first."  
  
"Normally I'd say no and laugh in your face, but under the circumstances..." Mirwold mused. "Yes, I think you should learn Westron, if for no other reason than the off chance that those ignoramuses from Gondor mistake your English for Black Speech or something equally ridiculous. Honestly, the quality of Rangers these days! It makes you wonder what they teach them in school. But they'll be just stupid enough to catch the mysteriousness of your accent and believe me when I tell them that you're from slightly west of the Mist Mountains and speak but little of the Common Tongue..." An evil grin spread across his face. "I can just see it now."  
  
Vaguely I wondered what he was talking about. It was only later, as I walked down the path leading to Esgaroth under the full load of Englas and Fadrornion's discarded luggage that the horror of the situation truly hit me. I began to wonder if there was some way that I could get the ring away from Mirwold without him noticing. "A very strong person could bend it to his or her will," Mirwold had said. I had just survived three days in the middle of a large wilderness with him. Surely that counted for something. 


	10. The Den of Iniquity and Shameless Fangir

Mirwold was right. We hadn't been very deep in Mirkwood at all. It was barely an hour or so according to my watch before the trees began to slowly taper off and thin into nothing. We were walking beside a river now. Suddenly Mirwold paused and stopped me. "Look," he whispered, and pointed into the distance. I looked.  
  
"It's a lake," I said. "A really - big lake?"  
  
Mirwold sighed. "Never mind," he muttered.  
  
* * *  
  
"You're going to have to wear a dress," Mirwold informed me the next day, as Esgaroth appeared at last on the horizon. "Your blue pants and sleeveless purple tunic, or whatever you call it, blend in around here like a Balrog among elves. Also, they will confuse people as to your gender. I mean, your hair is bad enough. So, the first thing we do once we get to Esgaroth is buy you some new clothes. You can put on Englas' traveling cloak on in the meantime, just remember to pull on the hood. And whatever you do, don't even think about talking!"  
  
"Are you sure there's no other person in these parts who would go with you instead?" I whined. I was beginning to feel the full weight of traveling in Middle Earth, literally. My back was killing me.  
  
Mirwold sighed. "Fadrininin and Englas have to stay behind to take care of the operation," he explained patiently.  
  
"What operation?"  
  
"Selling your stuff," he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "We release such goods very gradually onto the market to keep the prices sky-high."  
  
"No, no!" I exclaimed, clutching my purse protectively. "The Tic-Tacs are mine, mine I tell you! You shall never wrest them from me, you monster. Ever!"  
  
"We shall see about that," said Mirwold with an evil - bad - laugh and pulled a filthy-looking cloak out of the pack on my back. It was a kind of ugly grey-green, stained with dried mud and reeking of a hundred sweaty campfires. "It's not called a 'traveling' cloak for nothing, you know," he informed me when he saw my face.  
  
"And you're not called Bob the Bad for nothing, either," I muttered under what I thought was my breath. How was I supposed to know that good hearing was a common Maia trait?  
  
* * *  
  
It was sunset when I finally limped into Esgaroth. I was strangely thankful to be around civilization again, even one as notoriously boring as Lake-town. For one, Mirwold was forced to quit the incessant screeching that he had been hurling in my direction all day.  
  
"Where's the old city?" I whispered, surveying the horizon in vain. I hadn't seen it anywhere so far.  
  
"Old city?" Mirwold asked, confused. "What old city?"  
  
"You know, old Esgaroth? The one that Smaug burned down?"  
  
"Smaug? What's that?"  
  
"The dragon," I prompted him, "The dragon who burned down Esgaroth."  
  
"Oh, I don't think you have to worry about dragons. There haven't been any dragons around here in ages," Mirwold assured me. "The occasional old geezer insists that one still exists in that hill over there, but everyone knows they're just getting a bit senile and all." A chilling thought occurred to me: maybe Esgaroth really hadn't been destroyed yet. But if Esgaroth hadn't been destroyed yet, not only had I come far too early to ever even hope to be alive when the Fellowship was formed, much less to become one of its founding members (just another one of those unforeseen drawbacks to random Middle Earth entry using badly-documented, non-canon Rings of Power), Smaug the evil maiden-eating dragon wasn't dead yet. He was still lurking somewhere within the mountain that rose ominously in the distance in all its orange-bathed glory. Somehow it didn't surprise me. Knowing my luck, I had probably landed somewhere towards the end of The Hobbit and would probably have my bed burned from beneath me as I slept.  
  
Suddenly Mirwold started laughing uncontrollably. "The look on your face!" he sniggered. "You can't see the old city because it's too dark. There's nothing to see any more, really. Practically everything above the water was either burned or crushed by falling Smaug. I don't know why they don't destroy the mess completely. An eyesore and a safety hazard is what I call it."  
  
There were a couple of men guarding the bridge that led to Lake-town, an eyesore and a safety hazard of a town itself. They waved at Mirwold when they saw him approach. Apparently, he was well known around these parts. They didn't even bother to question my presence, if they noticed it at all.  
  
"Now, remember," hissed Mirwold, "speak and I kill you."  
  
"Aslond Mirwold!" exclaimed one of the men, running towards Mirwold, arms outstretched. They exchanged a manly hug of friendship.  
  
"Olsn paolin asnd eorn asgrim i aslonee!" Mirwold cried, patting the man on the back. He was a born actor, he really was. The two began talking to each other in hushed voices; I couldn't even guess at what they were saying. Eventually, Mirwold tore himself away from his very friendly friend and made it over the bridge at last, me close in tow.  
  
It wasn't particularly late in the evening, but there were already very few people on the streets of Lake-town, and all of them seemed to be in a hurry. I got the distinct feeling that this was not a party town by any stretch of the imagination. Mirwold led me straight to his house, which was one of the larger, more structurally sound ones around.  
  
I had expected it to be dark inside; strangely enough, it wasn't. There was a nice, warm fire waiting for us - wasn't Esgaroth enough of a fire-hazard as it was? - and a lamp on the table. "Fadrinion and Englas," Mirwold explained, pointing to the corner of the room where they sat examining a battered-looking CD player.  
  
The place was an absolute disaster. Crates and crates of backpacks stood in the corner, spilling pink socks and stuffed animals out onto the floor. A stack of assorted Legolas paraphernalia, ranging from the bookmark to the day-timer, sat on the table beside unwashed breakfast dishes and sparkly little diaries with fuzzy blue covers and matching pens. There were unmistakable signs of shameless fan exploitation here. It was sickening just to think of. I wondered if any of the little morons had thought to bring toothpaste. No, no! Bad thought!  
  
"We'll be staying the night," announced Mirwold. "You can sleep in the spare bedroom, Englas will point you in the right direction, don't get comfortable and the bathroom is the second door to the left. Good-night." With that, he left the room.  
  
My eyes lit up. "A real live bathroom!" I murmured in joy and ran to investigate. It was a bathroom, all right. There was a little round stone tub sitting in the middle of the otherwise empty room. A bath. I should have known it was too good to be true.  
  
* * *  
  
A/N: this is in honour of my 10th chapter (*sniff* they grow so fast), where I'd like to take the opportunity to thank all the wonderful, brilliant, not to mention truly talented people who reviewed this story, you people bring warm fuzzies to my heart. Especially Bilbo. You're the bestest hobbit ever. This chapter's for you, little buddy. 


	11. The Dress Episode

I woke up very early the next morning, out of habit. It was barely dawn outside. I walked out to the main room in search of breakfast. Mirwold was sitting there, alone, staring at the Legolas bookmark that Fadrornion and Englas had left at the top of the debris-piles on the table. Someone in their wisdom had printed some of the One Ring's evil inscription across the top of it for no clear or apparent reason, an inscription that Mirwold was now staring at in confusion.  
  
"'Nazg durbatulûk. . . ash nazg'?" Obviously the meaning was lost on Mirwold, who was still trying unsuccessfully to figure out what some apparently random bits of Black Speech were doing on an otherwise Modern Earth object. "Now why does that sound so familiar?" he muttered to himself. "Ash nazg. . . ash nazg. . . Of course! 'Ash nazg ack-Boback'! My very own Ring of Power inscription. How could I forget?"  
  
"You have an inscription on your ring, too?" I asked, despite myself.  
  
"A secret that dirt alone can tell," nodded Mirwold seriously. "Nice to see you up at last, Candace. The porridge is re-heating in the pot over the fire."  
  
It was at that moment that a horrible, horrible thought occurred to me. Mirwold was going to Mordor. Mordor was where Sauron lived. Sauron was looking for his ring. Mirwold was in daily contact with people who knew exactly who had it and exactly where it was going. Mirwold was not stupid. Mirwold had either figured the whole thing out by now or would do so soon. Mirwold was bad. Sauron was bad. If Mirwold found out the truth about the One Ring and told Sauron, Sauron would be able to get it back easily and cover all the lands in a second darkness. That would be really, really bad. And there was only one person who could save the world - me. At last I had found my niche, my raisin d'etre here in the crazy world of Middle Earth. I had to stop Mirwold from making it to Mordor. But first, the shopping trip.  
  
* * *  
  
After I had finished breakfast, or as much of it as I would ever want, Mirwold took me shopping. At first, I could hardly believe my luck. I was going to get *the dress*, the beautiful prettyprincess dress, the just reward of all good fangirls, the dress that transformed someone into a stunning elf-magnet with ice-violet eyes and long, flowing hair that flashed like red gold in the sunlight or variations thereupon. "I don't really like being pretty, or being in a pretty dress," I would say, as Legolas paddled up to Esgaroth in a canoe on a random journey from Mirkwood in search of a plot point. "Wow," Legolas would exclaim, "You're as beautiful as an elf! No, wait - more beautiful!" Meanwhile, Mirwold would realized what a complete jerk he was and vanish in a puff of smoke back to wherever it was that he came from, leaving the path clear for happy endings all around.  
  
"Where are you going?" Mirwold demanded. "The second-hand dealer's in here." Somehow, I didn't like the sound of that.  
  
"I thought we were going to buy a dress!" I protested.  
  
"We are," answered Mirwold. "What, do you think they come off trees or something? You can't possibly expect me to take you to a dressmaker and have them make you one! Do you have any idea how long that would take?"  
  
"Make my dress," I repeated slowly, as reality's cold breath sent a chill down my spine.  
  
"Stitch by painstaking stitch. Exactly my point," said Mirwold. "Listening to you, one would think that clothing just appeared out of the air ready-made to fit. The next thing I know, you'll be asking for more than one!" I managed to force down my bitter tears of regret in silence. This was not turning out the way I had expected. I wondered how much worse it was going to get. Never tempt fate like that.  
  
The clothing shop was cold and dark. Dim shapes of various articles of clothes could be seen hanging from the walls and in piles on tables. My eyes adjusted gradually to the sight of a grumpy little man sitting behind a counter glaring at us. He said something to me that Mirwold answered, something that prompted a skeptical snort from the man and made him no less suspicious of us. Mirwold ignored him and turned his attention to a large box that I was sure was the Middle Earth equivalent of a bargain bin. While he rummaged through the box, I turned my attention to the clothing on the walls. My dress was here somewhere, I was sure.  
  
Unfortunately, there seemed to be nothing in Esgaroth fit for an elf princess. Everything here, regardless of length, width or price, was practical. Very, very practical. In fact, if I could choose only one word to sum up Esgaroth, it would be - no, wait, two words: if I could choose two words to - well, technically three, three words to sum up Esgaroth, they would be "practical and boring." The dresses were no exception. Available in your choice of black, brown, grey, green or grey-green. There was one really nice yellow hood that I was about to try on when Mirwold snappishly informed me that it was made for a dwarf. I asked him if Esgaroth ever got second-hand elf clothing. He said that he doubted it and wouldn't buy any even if they did.  
  
I did end up with a dress in the end, but it was a complete disappointment. Mirwold had wanted to buy the first thing that had vaguely fit me, despite my loud protests that it was ugly and I hated it. "Mortals and their fashion statements," he had sighed imperiously, "It looks fine to me."  
  
"But I look awful in grey," I protested, "and the arms are too long."  
  
"You can roll them up," Mirwold shrugged.  
  
"And it's itchy and hot."  
  
"It's wool. What do you expect?"  
  
"Wool gives me a rash," I whined, rolling up my sleeve to expose my itchy red forearm as proof.  
  
"Fine. We'll find something else then," snapped Mirwold. "But trust me, when you're out in the middle of nowhere freezing to death in nothing more than a little linen shift, you'll regret it."  
  
"But we we're going to be traveling in summer," I argued. "I'll die of the heat."  
  
It was at this point that the grumpy little man put in his two cents. Either he was throwing us out of his shop or demanding to know exactly what kind of strange, gibberish-speaking creature I was. It was difficult to tell. It took Mirwold some time to calm him back down again to a state of passive disgust, at which point the man left his counter to retreat into the back of the store. Mirwold used the opportunity to inform me that he had told the man that I was his insane cousin who had recently been kidnapped by a band of orcs and had never been the same again. "Very, very distant cousin," he added with distaste at the very idea. "But he's gone to get something that will fix all your problems."  
  
Hope was beginning to return to me when the man returned with a shapeless beige thing that looked like a very large sack that had mysteriously sprouted arms. "There," said Mirwold, very pleased with himself. "The man says you can wear that underneath the dress so that the wool isn't directly on your skin. It was a bit too big anyway."  
  
"I still look bad in grey."  
  
"It's not really grey," Mirwold assured me. "It's just kind of dirty. Don't worry, they all get that way sooner or later." 


	12. Elf in Black

I had hoped to see at least one elf in Esgaroth before I left, but Mirwold seemed to possess a strange ability to detect and avoid them before they had even appeared in sight. This was my only explanation for having been in the place for an entire day without once seeing an elf in a town that according to "The Hobbit" had been full to bursting with them. Or maybe that was just my own literary interpretation, flawed as usual, I reflected morosely. I had given up completely on being privileged enough to see one when He arrived on the scene.  
  
There really was no mistaking him for a human. He was much taller than Englas and Fadrornion the pseudo-elves were, although somewhat less blond. He was wearing a sleek grey cloak that rippled and flowed in the light breeze, underneath which peeked skin-tight leggings. A well- accessorized bow dangled casually in one hand as he swaggered down the street, muscling peasants and other riff-raff out of his way. He turned his head in my direction. To my shock and horror, I realized that he was wearing dark sunglasses.  
  
He seemed to recognize Mirwold. At least, that was the way I interpreted the strange gesture he made in his direction, one that Mirwold returned with a sneer. The elf stalked over, at which point I developed a sudden fascination with Esgarothian architecture and tried very hard not to look in any way connected with Mirwold.  
  
"Mae govannen," said the elf sarcastically. "All right," he added impressively, in a thick Elvish accent, "Let's take this to the next level."  
  
I couldn't help it. I really, really couldn't help it. I was seized with the uncontrollable urge to laugh so hard that tears flowed from my eyes and my sides ached. Self-control has never been one of my talents, although in retrospect it may not have been the best course of action to actually collapse onto the street in a choking fit of hysteria.  
  
"What? What? You think I'm funny?" demanded the elf, turning on me. It only made things worse.  
  
"Yes, yes!" I giggled.  
  
"Kiss the thin lips of my ax," the elf snarled as he turned on his well-heeled heel and stalked off again. Mirwold looked as if he couldn't decide which one of us he wanted to kick more.  
  
"Who was that?" I whispered once the elf was completely out of sight.  
  
"Morolas Blackleaf," said Mirwold coldly. "The fool! He actually thinks that he can compete with me. Me!"  
  
"What are you talking about?"  
  
"He's the competition, of course! Here I was, all thinking that I had a monopoly on the market and everything, and then along comes Morolas and his stupid elven-ring. And no, I have no clue where he got his ring or how it manages to transport people to and from Middle Earth. Frankly, I don't really care. I shall crush the puny sylvan upstart and his tacky inferior English back into the little hole he crawled out of, the dirt-crawling, slime-licking -"  
  
I had stopped listening right at the moment Mirwold said the words "transport people to and from Middle Earth". So there were other ways to get home after all! A plan began to form somewhere in the most evil recesses of the corners of my mind. 


	13. Something scary this way comes

As I sat in my dark bedroom that night, thinking nasty thoughts to myself and listening to the water swish and smack into the wooden framework of Laketown, a feeling of irrational blind terror slowly began to rise from the pit of my stomach. I had a plan, of course, but that involved actually seeing this Morolas Blackleaf again, and the chances of that ever happening seemed to have grown to slim to nothing. Mirwold, the evil creature that he was, had told me that we were leaving the next morning at the break of dawn, and I had no idea where it was that Morolas was staying. Even if I did, I have the navigational skills of a rabid salamander, and all of the street signs were written in squiggle.  
  
But the irrational blind terror had nothing to do with any of this: it seemed to be coming from a completely different source, somewhere tangible and shifting outside of me. It was as if something, something evil - not evil in the way the word is usually thrown away but completely, purely evil - was awake and walking in the black of Esgaroth. I had a strange urge to run screaming through the streets at the top of my lungs into the water, or drown myself in a maddened frenzy to be free of it, or at the very least curl into a very tight ball underneath the bed. Sausages. I knew I should not have eaten those sausages.  
  
The sound of a horse became distinct in the distance; I listened despite myself. It was such an incongruous sound to be hearing in a town built in the middle of a lake. The sound came nearer and nearer and my fear grew stronger and stronger until the world very suddenly grew deadly silent and the front door creaked open.  
  
It was all that I could do not to pee my pants. Calm down, Candy, this house belongs to a powerful Maia being who will not allow some puny Nazgul to mess with his furniture, I told myself, but it had little positive effect. There was very little I could do to help myself anyway: just when I wanted most to be leaping out the window I was being drawn towards the kitchen.  
  
I crawled out of my room and down the hall, thinking thoughts of death and despair all the way. By the time that I reached the entrance to the kitchen, which was oddly warm and bright, I was a suicidal puddle of misery. I peered curiously into the room, hoping against hope that I hadn't been seen or heard.  
  
Inside, to my shock, Mirwold was cheerfully making a pot of tea for himself at the fireplace while a figure in a black cloak sat massaging its temples in the corner and hissing things at him in a language that made my ears bleed. "Ackglack-ghârzlugig?" asked Mirwold with a smile, holding up an extra cup questioningly in the wraith's direction. The wraith shook one of its gloved fists and launched into a torrent of screeching. Mirwold shrugged and poured himself a cup. "Anghârzlugig? Ha?"  
  
"Ack-ack-Boback," shrieked the wraith, now really angry. It rose out of its red plush armchair and shuddered with powerless wrath. The effect that Mirwold was having on the Nazgul was similar to that of a fire on a marshmallow - the thing had been heating up for some time, and now it was being consumed by the flame, yet still kept from suddenly exploding into a raging blaze of red and green and singlehandedly massacring the fire by the inexorable rules that govern marshmallow behaviour -  
  
"Zhgaz-zhgaz," said Mirwold sweetly, opening the door and motioning the Nazgul out, which it did with a rush and a shriek that temporarily stopped my heart from beating. "Stupid ringwraiths," he muttered angrily to himself as soon as the creature was gone. "More trouble than they're worth, if you ask me." He was talking in English now. Was he talking to me? Himself? The door?  
  
"I was talking to you," Mirwold informed me. "The door just isn't responsive enough. Well, you look suitably scarred by the experience, don't you? Feel any remaining urges to claw at your face until your cheeks bleed? Yes?" I stared at him with wide, swimming eyes and wondered if he damage would be permanent and whether or not he had healing powers hidden up his sleeve. Mirwold, however, simply turned away, laughing to himself. "You're going to have so much fun in Mordor," he chuckled. He kicked a stray pair of pink fuzzy dice and a Legolas doll out of his way and returned to his tea. 


End file.
